Bo Xilai charged with embezzlement, bribery, and abuse of power

After numerousfalsealarms and outlandish rumours, Xinhua reports that Bo Xilai has finally been officially charged with ‘bribery, embezzlement and power abuse’.An official statement from the Jinan City People’s Procuratorate in Shandong stated that the former Chongqing party boss had accepted an “extremely large amount” of money and properties during his tenure, as well as embezzling public money, abusing his power and seriously “harming the interests of the state and people”.As Erik Crouch noted yesterday when news of Bo’s charges was leaked, the name Neil Heywood is noticeably missing from Bo’s indictment. Gu Kailai, Bo’s wife, was found guilty of murdering Heywood last August and given a suspended death sentence. At the very least Bo was implicated in an attempted coverup of Heywood’s murder, which also involved fashionista police chief Wang Lijun, if not the actual murder itself.